


Through Glass

by downbythebay



Category: Hunger Games - Fandom, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Adult Content, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:33:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downbythebay/pseuds/downbythebay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We're all mad here..."  Annie and Finnick the night before the reaping of the 75th Hunger Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Glass

**Author's Note:**

> _"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked._   
>  _"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."_   
>  _"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice._   
>  _"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."_   
>  **\--Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland**

My fingers are growing blistered again. Finnick washes and wraps my hands very patiently every night, but I only remove the dressing the next morning and begin my work anew, worrying the young flesh to a volatile crimson. I think that I am not deserving of his patience, but I accept it; to deny him anything would be unthinkable.

I work with beautifully processed silk and soy which they use for making fine yarn in District 1. Even the untreated, undyed fibers are smooth, and shine against my reddening hands as in my anxiety I pull the strands so tightly upon the ribs that the fibers cut into my skin.

It had been like this since they announced the rules of the Third Quarter Quell. Finnick and I returned to Victor’s Village from the cottage we shared at the mouth of the bay soon after the broadcast. Finnick is certain that nothing will be left to chance tomorrow at the reaping; that our names will be pulled from the giant fish bowls in the main square. We agreed that it would be best to appear quiescent, and return to the capital city; as they say; keep your enemies in the hen house. 

We do not have a hen house, but I once saw a fox eat a squirrel. That was the second lesson I learned in the arena: adapt or perish.

We have at least half a dozen neighbors, former Victors who have sunk into anonymity, like oysters waiting to be dredged from their beds. Some of them have families. I can see their lit houses from my window at night, making constellations in the darkened street. I count the illuminated windows to keep the nightmares at bay, but I always fall asleep before I can finish.

Strictly speaking, my residence is at 17 Victory Road, and Finnick’s at 14 Victory Road, but those fine, Capitol-bright houses are only empty shells. Both he and I stay with Mags at number 3, aptly named as there is more than enough room for our trio.

Mags keeps a beautiful home; she has lived here most of her life, which has given her plenty of time to amass all the odds and ends which makes this place seem less sterile and more like a home. The colors are warm and inviting. There is a sunroom in the front with a hammock where I like to sit. There is a fire place on every floor, the electric kind from District 3, which blazes to life at the flick of a switch. I imagine that every district is represented somewhere in our little den, by the furnishings and trinkets Mags has gathered through her many years as a mentor. 

Mags has always been kind to me, but I know it is Finnick whom she loves best. She came out of retirement to mentor him, when her progeny drowned in an accident off the northern coast a few weeks before the reaping; the other Victors too green or too broken to serve him as a lifeline in the arena.

Mags never married, as far as I can tell from the mementos that are carefully arranged throughout the rooms we share, though the presence of toys—puzzle boxes, model trains and hovercrafts—suggest that children once lived here. She thinks of Finnick as a son, which, I suppose, makes me her daughter-in-law. I find this analogy very helpful. She worries about how much of himself Finnick entrusts to me. I do not blame her, we Victors are a cynical breed.

In my time here, I have only added clutter to the careful balance of Mags’s home. I forget things and I do not always clean up after myself. The ever-encroaching reaping looming over us like a tidal wave has only exacerbated my little sins. Once, I was struck with the desire to try baking after seeing the boy on television, the one from 12. He was planning his wedding. He seemed happy. I left the loaf so long in the oven it turned to charcoal. They do not let me alone in the kitchen now.

I cannot bear to imagine what the arena will be like, now that the Gamemakers have had years of practice since my escape from their bloodthirsty machinations. Finnick reminds me that the terrors in my fantasies must be a thousand times worse than any plan they could dream up, only because I am a thousand times more clever than they will ever be. 

They will torture me tomorrow; I should not torture myself now. Instead weave until my fingers bleed. I find my mind is calmer when my hands work feverishly; when I can lose myself in a simple task. 

I sit in the sunroom working. I have finished one basket already today, by the time Finnick returns to the house, bringing fish, fresh from the wood burning stove at the back of the house. 

“Put that away now,” Finnick puts his hand on my head as he passes to set he plate on the strange claw-footed dining table of knotty District 7 pine. 

I gather the extra fibers from my lap and set them aside as Mags rises from her rocking chair to meet Finnick at the table. I run my hands over the basket to bid it farewell for now. I discover that am very proud o the hourglass shape as I run my hands over the sides and acquaint them with weave: over, under, over, under. 

My nail snags suddenly, halfway through the second curve, a place where the silken rope has skipped over two spokes in a row to form an awkward bump in the otherwise even wall.

“I made a mistake.”

Finnick looks up at me as he places a linen napkin in his lap. 

“I made a mistake.” 

The look on Finnick’s face says that he does not understand what this means, but he tries to console me anyway. “It’s okay, Annie. You’ll fix it after dinner.”

And fixing it means going backwards in time, undoing hours of work. I’ll never be able to make up the time before the reaping tomorrow. I make the baskets to make them, not to have them, but I want to finish them. I want to see it finished before I die.

“I can’t,” I am already pulling furiously at the loose ends. “There’s no time.”

Finnick lifts the napkin from his lap and leaves it crumpled on the table, he crossed the room in three strides and kneels down by me, stilling my hands before they can undo much of my afternoon’s labor.

“Then leave it,” he runs one hand up my cheek and into my hair. “It’s fine. It’s beautiful.”

“I made a mistake!” I pry my hands from his grasp and dash the basket to the floor, but the fibers are spongy and my work does no damage to itself or the other, leaving my hands longing to do violence. So I rake my fingernails across my scalp.

“Annie,” Finnick takes my shoulders. He forces me to look at him and his eyes are very green. “It’s one mistake. It’s okay. You are healthy, we are together; this is not a tragedy, I promise you that. Come, take a break. Come eat.”

I know there are worse things in the world. Children have died and I have killed them. But right now, this feels very important. My mind does not work the way I want it to, I have filled it with over and under to keep from dwelling on guilt and misery and the horrors that haunt my imagination, and even that has failed me. 

Finnick pulls me to my feet. I am not a small woman, others have found it difficult to make me go where I do not wish to go, but suddenly Finnick has me standing without my consent. He lets me go and it seems impossible for my legs to support me and I crumple onto the hardwood floor. I turn over to my side and weep.

“I can’t finish it.” My hair feels like dry straw in my fist. 

“This is nonsense,” Finnick leans over me. “For pity’s sake, Annie, please, come eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

I know it is foolish, but I can’t help myself. Finnick makes it so easy for me to throw temper-tantrums, the kind I was never afforded as a child. I find there is a bent sort of satisfaction in my fits, letting instinct rule over reason. Somewhere inside, I know that the indulgence is selfish, but it makes me feel selfless. Like I am no longer here, like I have escaped from the confines of my body and left a sobbing, thrashing harpy behind in my wake. 

I feel like screaming, I scream. I do not care who hears, our neighbors have become well-acquainted with my tantrums. That is the hardest lesson the arena taught me: care not for your dignity. 

“I’m very disappointed, right now,” Finnick never raises his voice to me, ever, but I know the sound of anger, I’ve felt it resonating in my skull. 

“You’re stronger than this. I know you are.” Trite nonsense words, the kind Caesar Flickerman uses to soothe frightened children; Finnick knows better than to use such tricks on me, now that my eyes have been opened to them. 

I am not strong, but with Finnick by my side, I can afford to be weak. But that is not why I cleave to him; that is why he cleaves to me. Perhaps in another world, we could have been happy, but here and now, Mags is right to worry about us. 

“Even if you’re not hungry, you need to eat.”

How weary Finnick must be of filling in my broken places, holding the shattered pieces together like a net straining against a school of fish. 

“I don’t want it,” my throat is already raw.

“I made it for you,” his voice rises, almost to frustration, but he keeps himself in check.

“I didn’t ask you to!” I never do, and he always does. Such is the way of the world. 

I roll onto my back, feet and fists planted against the hard, cool floor and scream until my lungs are void. Finnick’s jaw tightens; I imagine he would like to smoother me with one of the lovely throw pillows with embroidered lighthouses and stuffed with down and District 11 cotton. Instead he reaches down to hold one of my hands. I used the other to cover my face.

“I want to die. I want to die.” 

That is at least half-true. I long to take one of the silver knives from the table and drive it into my belly. My stomach aches with emptiness for the cold metal. I would rather die here than go back to the arena, but that would mean hurting Finnick, which is something I could never do willingly.

“Take me, please. Please, take me.”

I do not know to whom I am speaking. There is no one to take me. In the distance, I can hear the horn of a barge upon the river.

“Shh,” Finnick strokes my hair and gathers me into his lap. He must think I am speaking to him. He kisses my temple.

“I love you,” he repeats over and over. In his arms I feel almost human again. I cling to the front of his shirt; it still smells like muddy water and crushed oyster shells. 

“I want to go home,” the words spring unbidden from my mouth. “I want my daddy.”

My chest is filled suddenly with such desire that I think I might die if it is not satisfied as Finnick’s arms tense around me.

“Annie,” from the tone of his voice I know that he has something terrible to say, even before I see the tears that creep into the corners of his green eyes, and the desire is replaced with dread as quickly as it came.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” he cradles my neck in his hand and presses his lips to my brow. “Your father passed.”

“What?” I push violently on Finnick’s chest. “That’s not true.” The unforgiving wave of grief hits me and I scramble away from him like a crab on all fours.

“It happened while we were away on your victory tour,” Finnick reaching out for me.

“What?” I fall onto my bottom and stare at my feet. My fingers become tangled half-way through my hair.

“I begged them to put it off longer, I swear I did.” Tears run down Finnick’s face, so I cry too, thinking I have hurt him. “But you had two really good weeks. You sat with him and told him stories, and ate strawberries, and held his hand, and read poetry. He really liked that, you know.”

He does not accuse me of forgetting, but I have forgotten. Something very important. The old Annie whose mind was sound never would have made such a mistake, wouldn’t have to live through it all over. 

Finnick moves toward me, but I push him away, folding into myself. 

“Go away!” I do not want him, I want my father, who meant nothing to me when he was alive, who means nothing to me know except that I cannot even summon his face into my memory.

“Annie, if there were anything I could do to spare you from this, I would do it.” Finnick folds his own arms around his legs, to mirror my posture. 

“I know.” It is the most logical thing I have said today. “But, I just want to be left alone right now.”

Finnick nods and stands up. Mags has not intervened. In fact, she is almost finished her dinner. Finnick sits down to a plate of cold trout and asparagus. They finish their meal in silence and I pick myself up off the floor. I wipe my nose on my sleeve and drag myself to the sunroom hammock, to curl up in the moonlight.

Mags goes up to bed first. As her footsteps creak slowly up the stairs Finnick comes in and lays a blanket over me, made of wool from sheep reared in District 10.

“I’m going to bed,” he whispers close to my ear as he kisses the crown of my head. “Come up whenever you want. I love you, goodnight.”

I bite my thumb and nod, and gather the blanket closer around me. Finnick retreats up the stairs. After a while, I can hear him and Mags talking. They don’t know their whispers carry down the stairs and resound against the glass of the sunroom.

“Two of us go in, only one of us comes out, rebellion or no rebellion.”

“It’s their way of keeping you in check.”

The way they talk about me, I begin to feel like a character in a storybook. 

“They know I won’t step out of line as long as she’s with me. This is never going to work. We’re all going to die.” 

“Finnick. You’re sounding more and more like her every day; it worries me.”

Today was a bad day, but I have good days too. Days when it seems like my happiness is part of something greater, eternal; there are moments when I am so happy, they chase every wicked thought from my mind. I wish I could crawl inside those moments and live in them forever. I am equal parts delight and despair; it only takes a featherweight to tips the scale one way or the other. I am just sad that my last day of freedom turned into a bad day.

“I feel so damn helpless. I wish there was something I could do for her.”

“It will be okay. Just get some rest, Finnick. It will be okay.” 

I know the sagacious tone of Mags’s voice. She’s hiding something, Finnick doesn’t realize, because he loves her too much. Eventually I fall asleep, in spite of the feeling of disaster hanging over me.

In the morning, my skin is tight and itchy, but I’m calmer. I decide that today will be a good day, no matter what anyone has planned for me. 

The sky is grey and the air is cool as I unfold my limbs from the gently swaying hammock, dozens of tiny knots impressed upon the skin of my arms and legs. There is a cool breeze, through the sunroom window I can see the blades turning on the ornate windmill set on the lawn, a miniature version of the ones I’ve seen from the train through District 9.

I make my way up to the bedroom where Finnick and I share. I know where to step so that the stairs do not creak. Finnick is still asleep in bed when I open the door.

I linger in the doorway and watch him breathing. The gentle rise and fall of his chest like a constant rhythm that keeps me sane. When I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror against the far wall, I think that I am not unlovely, but I can find no rational reason for Finnick’s devotion to me. 

The mirror which reflects my countenance is easily more beautiful than I; a full-length glass with a gilt frame. The looking glass itself must have been made in District 1, the only district which could have produced something so fine, but the sand that was melted into the glass came from District 4 beaches.

“Finn—Finnick.” I sit upon the edge of the bed and brush a wisp of bronze hair from his brow and he jerks up in bed.

“Annie.” He blinks, and rubs his eyes, rolling on to one hip, the covers cascade down his side, his skin seems pale in the morning light. 

“Good morning,” I am smiling.

“Good morning,” he echoes, brushing his fingertips down my arm. 

Finnick kisses me softly and I can feel his lips smiling against my mouth. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks. 

“I’m sorry…I’m not right.” The corners of my lips are pressed tight together like holding a secret.

Finnick gathers me in to his arms and holds me against his chest. He pulls the blankets over me and runs his fingers through my hair.

“It’s good, that we’re going, isn’t it? Because that means no children will die this year; we’re broken already.” My cheeks are wet, I taste salt on my lips as I speak.

“That’s why no one stands up for us. Because with us dying, their children are safe.”

I lift my chin to meet his eyes. “I’m not afraid to die.” 

“This is District 4,” Finnick whispers against my lips. “Women outlive their men, not the other way around.”

“Don’t talk like that, Finnick,” I ball my fists against his chest and long to sink into his body until there is no space between us. “I can’t take it.”

“Yes you can,” he said. “I know you. You can do anything.”

I hiccup through a sob; I swore today would be a good day. “I’m insane, Finnick. I’m insane.”

Finnick kisses me to silence me, and for a moment it quiets my mind. I hold Finnick tighter and he wipes the tears from my face. 

There is fear rising in my belly as Finnick’s hands creep under my sweater, over my sides and across my stomach. I take his hand and guide it down the curve of my hip. I breathe against his mouth, trying to hold the air we share inside of me.

Finnick slides out from under me, settles me onto the mattress and places his knees on either side of my hips. Every touch seems to chase away the looming threat of today’s reaping. Our bodies meet and I can imagine nothing but Finnick.

In our reflection in the mirror, we appear like a four-legged creature draped in satin as with gentle touches and soft moans we search for the world where children are not murdered for the crimes of their ancestors and we can finally be happy.

“I love you,” Finnick whispers. “I love you.” My heart beats very quickly and I know this is good, and important, and real. I try to commit this feeling to memory, to ensure I have something to summon up when the world seemed to fall away from around me. It is not going to back to the arena which paralyzes me with fear; it is that I never left.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
